Edit: changed title to present status/problem. Below is original thread showing problems getting puppy onto lan. Problems linking to WinXp turned out to be just figuring out how to use/ set up Puppy as per below. Sharing with Win98 seems to be a basically different and difficult problem as per end of page 1.

When i ask windows to look for computer named puppypc there is no success. Pup was set up for anonymous/everytime sharing using the setup sharing utility.

When i ask pup to scan for other computers, wait a long time, no success. Seems like something just times out. Is there some switch not turned on. In the manual, i've tried to enter the ip address and various combinations of user and computer names. It just seems to create a folder/ icon on puppy but can't find. I can't seem to understand (being a newbienoob) the puppy wiki or manual - seems light on this topic. Can someone suggest where i go wrong or walk me thru process.

Thanks ahead!

For reference, here are some pages on the subject
from 3 yrs ago
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=13074#13074

from the wiki
http://www.puppylinux.org/wiki/archives/old-wikka-wikki/categorydocumentation/network
seems to only be about setting up the ethernet card, pinging etc.

manual seems to be silent on thisLast edited by canbyte on Sun 01 Feb 2009, 23:12; edited 3 times in total

When i ask pup to scan for other computers, wait a long time, no success. Seems like something just times out.

Have you used the Connect icon to connect to the LAN? Are you using Pnethood to find and mount your windows boxes on the network? Do you have any shared folders set up on your Windows machines?_________________Actions speak louder than words ... and they usually work when words don't!
SIP:whodo@proxy01.sipphone.com; whodo@realsip.com

Thanks Whodo. Your very simple and precise question encapsulated what i did not understand even after reading reams of pages and threads. I would like to suggest that those exact words be placed at the very top of the wiki page on this subject. Saves lots of time for those who can take a hint!!

That was Puppy's first time seeing files from the winXP box but still no luck on looking into win98 (it does find the name of the machine) or having either winXP or 98 finding puppy. Not sure what i'm doing wrong but the two windows boxes can see each other.

I suspect the username in win98 which is "windows 98" (with a space) could be a problem.. It seems to be default - apparently this name can't be removed and adding my own name as "new user" chews up a lot of memory/speed or something. Is there a way to get puppy to recognize the existing name as is using some code to represent the space? Or is this even the problem??

That was Puppy's first time seeing files from the winXP box but still no luck on looking into win98 (it does find the name of the machine) or having either winXP or 98 finding puppy. Not sure what i'm doing wrong but the two windows boxes can see each other.

Since XP is based on NT ("New Technology") and 98 is based on DOS (with a Windows graphical wrapper - oh yes it is despite what Bill tried to tell us! ), the way they share directories is very different. It's so long since I played with Win98 that I can't remember exactly how different, but enough to require a separate approach.

Go to your Documents folder on Windows 98, right click and see if it gives you an option to share the folder. If it does, and you accept to do that, it will be shared with EVERYONE on the network. Win98 couldn't differentiate because being based on DOS it is peer-to-peer only, unlike NT-based systems which have greater security over sharing.

If it doesn't give you that option, I think you will also have to set up your network interface to both install and allow file and print sharing first (damn that old-timer's disease makes it hard to remember past last week! ).

Hope that helps._________________Actions speak louder than words ... and they usually work when words don't!
SIP:whodo@proxy01.sipphone.com; whodo@realsip.com

Thanks Whodo. Windows98 does give the share option and the 2 windows boxes can share files with each other. No internal security concerns in our family lan. So at least i've got a way to print, even if a bit cumbersome, ie save a puppy doc into the XP, open it and print it from there. Eventually i would like to get away from windows XP (just keeping an old offline win98 to run certain apps). This means eventually I want puppy to be able to share with win98 [other than through a floppy]. Somewhere i read that puppy was, made/ developed to be compatible with win98 so am starting to wonder if i should have started with an earlier puppy version (but not knowing the differences that implies). I edited my first post to include some old links talking about win98 but these dated from the puppy 2 era. I wonder if i should keep trying to fathom these ie is puppy 4 backwards compatible in that way??

Mulling this over, i'm wondering why any compatibility issues have not been solved a long time ago?? Or was puppy never designed to network anyway?

Is it possible there are hardware issues even if i can connect puppy to the internet (& see/share to the XP)???

I wonder if i should keep trying to fathom these ie is puppy 4 backwards compatible in that way??

I don't think the problem is with Puppy. It's more likely to be the absence of a Samba server application and/or a suitable TCP/IP stack on the Win98 box. You are using TCP/IP for your protocal, aren't you? The two Window$ boxes use MS's own peer-to-peer networking using Netbui. Linux in general, and Puppy in particular, doesn't have that. That is why you have to use Samba to get SMB (Server Message Block protocol) compatibility for file sharing.

NT series has built in Samba services and TCP/IP, which is why the XP box connects so easily. I think you had to add these services to the Win98 box. I used to have enough trouble getting Win98 boxes to talk to each other, never mind anything else. _________________Actions speak louder than words ... and they usually work when words don't!
SIP:whodo@proxy01.sipphone.com; whodo@realsip.com

Whodo, for a fellow who complaind about not remembering....... if you forgot, it was much more than i ever knew. I'll find out about the TCP/IP if i can remember where to look and edit this post with the info. How would one add services to win98 box? Hopefully, developing this thread will prove useful to others that are still using win98 - hey, that is the ideal Puppy market/ migrant!

If NT has built in Samba, why is the XP not able to see into Puppy is another Q.

I'll find out about the TCP/IP if i can remember where to look and edit this post with the info. How would one add services to win98 box?

In the Control Panel there is an option for networking. You have to go in there and there will be a button to add - services, protocols. etc.

canbyte wrote:

If NT has built in Samba, why is the XP not able to see into Puppy is another Q.

Well, technically, NT has built in SMB handling, rather than Samba. Puppy doesn't have a Samba server by default; only a samba client.

You can get the XP box to see Puppy by running a Window$ freeware utility called ext2fs or something similar which allows XP to see the Puppy ext2 file system. Be careful, though, because it would also allow certain virus, worm and trojan programs to exist in the Linux file system (not infect, just exist), where they may escape your antivirus measures, if any.

Hope that helps._________________Actions speak louder than words ... and they usually work when words don't!
SIP:whodo@proxy01.sipphone.com; whodo@realsip.com

Clicking on the Win98 control panel / network icon
Looking at properties of various items listed i see that TCP/IP is selected in a number of places ie 'Efficient Netwks PPoE adaptr' - [ but on Virtual Private Netwks Adaptr, NDISWAN is selected]. The TCP/IP properties says it optains IP address automatically, DNS is disabled.

Re: Ext2fs.sys, Your warning about viruses stopped me cold. I'm not doing any protecting at the moment and would prefer not to court trouble. If anyone else is interested, here is the website.
http://www.fs-driver.org/
My search also turned up this site which has what looks to be a similar utility that supports all windows OS from 9x to Vista
http://www.diskinternals.com/linux-reader/
I may try the latter utility on win98 after i fix it up and take it off the internet which hopefully can keep viruses out.

Nothing in the descriptions of these utilities indicated they are able to detect Puppy on a lan, is just able to read puppy files [the latter is read only].

So i gues the final step is to get win98 box to detect the puppy on the 'find computer' request. The files will mainly go from the internet to puppy to win98 for processing. Does creating a new partition on either box do anything to allow detection/sharing?? ie with the fat formatting?

The files will mainly go from the internet to puppy to win98 for processing. Does creating a new partition on either box do anything to allow detection/sharing?? ie with the fat formatting?

Not really. If you are using TCP/IP as the protocol rather than something else on your Win98 network adapter and still can't be seen by Puppy then the problem most likely lies in enabling file and print sharing on the Win98 box. As I said, I've had plenty of fun just getting Win98 to talk to other Win98 boxes at times, much less anything else. Can you do ipconfig in a console on the Win98 box to find out its IP address and then try to ping that address from Puppy? It will be a number that looks something like 192.168.0.2 / 255.255.255.0 - both numbers are important to know at the moment. Running ifconfig from a console in Puppy will give similar information. Please post both results here.

canbyte wrote:

Clicking on the Win98 control panel / network icon
Looking at properties of various items listed i see that TCP/IP is selected in a number of places ie 'Efficient Netwks PPoE adaptr' - [ but on Virtual Private Netwks Adaptr, NDISWAN is selected]. The TCP/IP properties says it optains IP address automatically, DNS is disabled.

Ok, neither of these looks like your LAN adapter. One looks like an ADSL soft adapter and the other looks like a VPN client adapter for private network access. Are these the only two adapters you have listed?

We need a physical (hardware) adapter to bind our TCP/IP protocol to and to enable file and print sharing through. The other two wouldn't seem to fit that bill._________________Actions speak louder than words ... and they usually work when words don't!
SIP:whodo@proxy01.sipphone.com; whodo@realsip.com

The win98 willl share files with the winXP box no problem
Puppy detects win98 box but cannot see the shared files - just says no shares

Re" We need a physical (hardware) adapter to bind our TCP... " If a new adapter is needed is a good time - win98 headed for clean wipe reinstall soon (at shop).

Hope that helps,

Cheers

Edit: Guess we're stuck, looked around other forums, found this link giving some idea of what etc/smb.conf should look like. Will post if i have any luck. Have made backup and i assume i can't acually break anything by fooling around with this file. Better tell me quick if i'm about to trash my hd install! Something i'd never / couldn't try in Windows
http://www.usenet-forums.com/linux-networking/63572-two-problems-samba-suse-9-1-windows-98-reposted.html
Pray fer me~

Well i guess nobody prayed hard enough - seems i just screwed things up. Hope someone can help. Per my above edit, i tried to change smb.conf but in doing so, what i thought was a backup file (geany save as) somehow became just an unusable link when the original file was discarded. Geany won't open the backup file, well its the same as the one i created. Maybe the old file is in the recycle or ???

Obviously this is what happens when noobs get messing around with things they don't understand. The good news is that the changes didn't seem to make things worse as far as i can tell. Same response when i try to network.

Can someone send/post a copy of the original smb.conf from a puppy 412. Thanks.

Here is my new smb.conf copied from the link above & my info inserted plus a few lines from this link:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-software-2/mounting-win98-shares-using-samba-14410/

Basically throwing in the kitchen sink!! seems to do no damage!!??
------------------------
[global]

# uid = the name of the user you want to give file creation and full
# read-and-write access on the Win machine

Cheers, thanks in advance.

Edit: PS. I'm looking at the post linked below for more ideas on how to connect puppy to win98. Seems to have worked but i don't follow what he (Paul) is saying. Thoughts??
http://www.kuliniewicz.org/blog/archives/2003/12/21/windows-98-file-sharing-broken-by-design/
.and another forum [edit2]
http://forums.devshed.com/networking-help-109/still-can-t-connect-to-win98-resources-using-samba-from-88994.htmlLast edited by canbyte on Mon 02 Feb 2009, 23:29; edited 1 time in total

Seems i've got to the playing around stage trying out different mods on the above smb.conf file. Dunno how it "runs" but it seems just saving the edits causes the file to run without a reboot. Then i open rxvt and type
smbclient -L win98

Commanding rxvt
SMBclient [enter]
gives the command usage - i can see that the -U is username, which is blank. There are many alternatives -R, -I, -Z,-A, -P, -i, -m, -c, -g, -s, -n
which could be tried. Any to narrow down the list?

Commanding rxvt to
SMBmount
seems to invoke the smb.conf file with the same output as before but then appending usage for a command called 'smbfs'
Is there a mistake in my code here since the arguments seem no be in wrong format or unralated to the options shown.

Hmm. So what is a network name and where should it go??
If the lines are badly formed, how is correct?
Maybe the other junk relates to the stuff puppy linux didn't include????

In rxvt highlight the output you want to copy, open leafpad or geany and either click the scroll wheel or click both mouse buttons simultaneously to paste. Save that and then you can cut and paste to the forum inside a code block like this

Code:

code goes here

Even if I can't help in time, at least someone else will get to see the errors and may have a solution.

Cheers_________________Actions speak louder than words ... and they usually work when words don't!
SIP:whodo@proxy01.sipphone.com; whodo@realsip.com

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